Tag Archives: Ukraine

Russia orders troops back to base after buildup near Ukraine

By Tom Balmforth and Matthias Williams

MOSCOW/KYIV (Reuters) – Russia announced on Thursday it was ordering troops back to base from the area near the border with Ukraine, apparently calling an end to a buildup of tens of thousands of soldiers that had alarmed the West.

The currencies of both Russia and Ukraine rose sharply after the announcement, signaling relief among investors just hours after Russia also ended war games in Crimea, the peninsula it occupied and annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

There was no immediate response from Western countries, but a pullout of the troops brought in on top of the permanent contingent was likely to be welcomed by countries that had been expressing alarm at the prospect of further Russian intervention in eastern Ukraine. Russian-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian government in the region since 2014.

The Ukrainian president’s spokeswoman said this month that Russia had more than 40,000 troops deployed on Ukraine’s eastern border and over 40,000 in Crimea. Around 50,000 of them were new deployments, she said. Moscow has not provided any troop numbers.

In a tweet, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine “welcomes any steps to decrease the military presence & deescalate the situation in Donbas (eastern Ukraine)”, adding “Grateful to international partners for their support”.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had told Reuters Kyiv did not know whether Moscow intended to launch an attack or not, and said the West must make clear it would stand with Ukraine if Russia did so.

“So it can go in either direction now,” Kuleba said. “And this is why the reaction of the West, the consolidated reaction of the West, is so important now, to prevent Putin … from making that decision.”

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said he had ordered troops involved in exercises to return to their bases by May 1, as they had completed what he called an “inspection” in the border area.

“I believe the objectives of the snap inspection have been fully achieved. The troops have demonstrated their ability to provide a credible defense for the country,” Shoigu said.

EQUIPMENT LEFT

Military hardware was to be left at a training ground near the city of Voronezh, about six hours’ drive from Ukraine, so that it could be used again later this year in another big scheduled exercise.

Hours earlier, Shoigu had attended maneuvers in Crimea, which Moscow said involved 10,000 troops and more than 40 warships. Russia also announced it had arrested a Ukrainian man in Crimea as a spy.

The troop buildup near Ukraine was one of several issues that have raised tensions between Russia and the West.

Last week, the United States tightened sanctions on Russia over accusations that it had hacked computers and meddled in U.S. elections, and the Czech Republic accused Moscow of a role in deadly explosions at an arms dump in 2014.

Both countries expelled Russian diplomats, prompting angry denials and tit-for-tat expulsions by Moscow.

Western countries have also urged Russia to free jailed hunger-striking opposition figure Alexei Navalny, with Washington warning of “consequences” should he die in prison. Russia says the West should not interfere.

In a major speech on Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin sounded a defiant note, warning Western countries not to cross unspecified “red lines”. But Putin is also participating this week in a climate summit organized by U.S. President Joe Biden.

In Moscow, the Kremlin said Putin was aware of an invitation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to meet to discuss the crisis.

“If the president considers it necessary, he will reply himself. I have nothing to say on that now,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

(Additional reporting by Andrey Ostroukh, Maxim Rodionov and Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Ukraine says Russia will soon have over 120,000 troops on its borders

By Matthias Williams and Robin Emmott

KYIV/BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Russia will soon have more than 120,000 troops on Ukraine’s border, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Tuesday, calling for new Western economic sanctions to deter Moscow from “further escalation.”

Washington and NATO have been alarmed by the large build-up of Russian troops near Ukraine and in Crimea, the peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Western officials say the concentration of forces is now larger than during that annexation. The figure given by Kuleba is higher than Ukraine’s previous estimate of 80,000 Russian troops, of which 50,000 were new deployments.

“Russian troops continue to arrive in close proximity to our borders in the northeast, in the east and in the south. In about a week, they are expected to reach a combined force of over 120,000 troops,” Kuleba told an online news conference.

“This does not mean they will stop building up their forces at that number,” Kuleba said, warning of what he said was Moscow’s unpredictability although he said Ukraine did not want conflict with Russia.

“The cost of preventing Russia’s further escalation will always be lower than the cost of stopping it and mitigating its consequences … It is way more effective to clearly make Moscow understand that a new stage of aggression will have dire consequences for Russia, international isolation and painful economic sanctions.”

Kuleba also called for Moscow to re-commit to a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed forces have fought Ukrainian troops in a conflict that Kyiv says has killed 14,000 people since 2014.

Kyiv and Moscow have traded blame for a rise in casualties in the conflict in recent weeks. Kuleba said Russian snipers were killing Ukrainian soldiers to provoke Ukraine to counterattack.

Russia has said its troop build-up is a three-week snap military drill to test combat readiness in response to what it calls threatening behavior from NATO. Moscow on Tuesday also accused the U.S. and NATO of “provocative activity” in the waters and airspace of the Black Sea.

Kuleba attended a video conference with EU foreign ministers and said he openly “called on colleagues to start considering a new round of sectoral sanctions against Russia”.

He said he did not feel EU ministers were ready for such a move but he told them that individual sanctions on Russian officials were insufficient.

(Editing by Alison Williams and Timothy Heritage)

Russian military build-up near Ukraine numbers more than 150,000 troops, EU’s Borrell says

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Russia has concentrated more than 150,000 troops on Ukraine’s border and in annexed Crimea, the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said on Monday after EU foreign ministers were briefed by Ukraine’s foreign minister.

“It is more than 150,000 Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian borders and in Crimea. The risk of further escalation is evident,” Borrell said, declining to give a source for the figure.

He said no new economic sanctions or expulsions of Russian diplomats were planned for the time being, despite saying that the military build-up on Ukraine’s borders was the largest ever.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, after addressing EU foreign ministers, called on the EU to impose new sanctions on Russia.

Tensions between Moscow and Kyiv have been rising amid the military build-up and clashes in eastern Ukraine between the army and pro-Russian separatists.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott and Sabine Siebold)

Low-to-medium risk of Russian invasion of Ukraine in next few weeks -US general

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -There is a “low to medium” risk that Russia will invade Ukraine over the next few weeks, the top U.S. general in Europe said on Thursday, in the first such military assessment amid mounting concern about Russian troop movements toward Ukraine’s borders.

Air Force General Tod Wolters declined to explain the intelligence driving his assessment, which does not suggest the U.S. military expects a Russian invasion at this point, but is not ruling one out or playing down the risk.

But Wolters later suggested his view about the risks in the coming weeks and months was at least partly based on the disposition of Russian forces.

The Pentagon has declined to detail its assessment on the size and composition of those troops, referring reporters to Moscow. However, the White House disclosed that Russia has more troops on Ukraine’s eastern border than at any time since 2014, when it annexed Crimea and backed separatist territory seizures.

Asked by a lawmaker to estimate the chances of an invasion in the next few weeks, Wolters said: “Low to medium.”

Pressed by a different lawmaker to explain whether that risk would change after that period, Wolters kept his cards close, saying: “The answer is, it depends.”

“And I would have to take each and every second of the day from this point till tomorrow to give you a different answer,” he said.

If the current trajectory stayed the same, however, Wolters estimated the risk of an invasion could decrease.

“My sense is, with the trend that I see right now, that the likelihood of an occurrence will start to wane,” he said.

Ukraine and Russia have traded blame over a spike in violence in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian troops have battled Russian-backed forces in a conflict that Kyiv says has killed 14,000 people since 2014.

Tensions over a buildup of Russian troops on Ukraine’s eastern border have pushed up the cost of raising domestic debt and prompted the government to accelerate efforts to secure more International Monetary Fund loans, a presidential adviser told Reuters on Thursday.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Franklin Paul and Jonathan Oatis)

Kremlin to Washington: Putin-Biden summit depends on U.S. behavior

By Andrew Osborn and Tom Balmforth

MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Kremlin said on Wednesday that a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden would be contingent on U.S. behavior after reportedly telling Washington to scrap a plan to impose new sanctions on Russia.

Biden, in a phone call on Tuesday, proposed a summit of the estranged leaders to tackle a raft of disputes and told Moscow to reduce tensions over Ukraine triggered by a Russian military build-up.

Moscow says the build-up is a three-week snap military drill in response to what it calls threatening behavior from NATO and has said the exercise is due to wrap up within two weeks.

Putin’s spokesman said on Wednesday that the proposed summit, in a yet to be chosen European country, was contingent on future U.S. behavior in what looked like a thinly veiled reference to potential U.S. sanctions.

“Of course, further work on this proposal to meet in a European country will only be possible taking into account an analysis of the actual situation and further steps from our counterparts,” Peskov was cited as saying by the RIA news agency.

Russia-U.S. ties slumped to a new post-Cold War low last month after Biden said he thought Putin was a “killer” and Moscow recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations. The envoy has still not returned almost a month later.

Peskov played down the prospect of a summit earlier on Wednesday, saying it was too early to talk about it in tangible terms.

“It’s a new proposal and it will be studied,” Peskov told reporters, saying no preparations for the summit were yet underway.

‘DECISIVE RESPONSE’ TO ANY SANCTIONS

Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov had invited John Sullivan, the U.S. ambassador in Moscow, to talks on Wednesday, Peskov said.

The U.S. embassy did not immediately comment on the meeting, but the RIA news agency reported that Ushakov had told Sullivan that Moscow would “act in the most decisive way possible” if the United States undertook any new “unfriendly steps” such as imposing sanctions.

Russia has been preparing to be hit by new sanctions since Biden said last month that Putin would pay a price for alleged Russian meddling in the November 2020 U.S. presidential election. Moscow denies interfering.

Tensions between Washington and Moscow are strained too by the expected imminent arrival of two U.S. warships in the Black Sea, a step Moscow has called an unfriendly provocation designed to test its nerves.

The Russian navy began a military exercise in the Black Sea on Wednesday ahead of their expected arrival.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Brussels on Wednesday for talks with NATO allies about a range of subjects, including Russia and Ukraine.

In a sign that the crisis over Ukraine remains tense, Ukraine’s armed forces rehearsed repelling a tank and infantry attack near the border of Russian-annexed Crimea on Wednesday.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Antonov and Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Merkel tells Putin to pull back troops as Kremlin accuses Ukraine of provocations

By Thomas Escritt and Tom Balmforth

BERLIN/MOSCOW (Reuters) -German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday to pull back the Kremlin’s military buildup near the border with Ukraine, while he in turn accused Kyiv of “provocative actions” in the conflict region.

Ukraine has raised the alarm over an increase in Russian forces near its eastern border as violence has risen along the line of contact separating its troops from Russia-backed separatists in its Donbass region.

“The Chancellor demanded that this build-up be unwound in order to de-escalate the situation,” Germany’s government said in a readout of a telephone call between Merkel and Putin.

Russia has said its forces pose no threat and were defensive, but that they would stay there as long as Moscow saw fit.

A senior Kremlin official said on Thursday that Moscow could under certain circumstances be forced to defend its citizens in Donbass and that major hostilities could mark the beginning of the end of Ukraine as a country.

The Kremlin said in its readout of the Merkel phone call that “Vladimir Putin noted provocative actions by Kyiv which is is deliberately inflaming the situation along the line of contact.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy flew to eastern Donbass in a show of support on Thursday two days after he called on NATO to lay out a path for Ukraine to join the military bloc, whose expansion Moscow fiercely opposes.

The rouble hit a five-month low on Wednesday a day after Russia said it had begun a planned inspection of its army’s combat readiness involving thousands of drills.

On Thursday, Dmitry Kozak, a senior Kremlin official, said Ukraine’s government were like “children playing with matches.”

“I support the assessment that the start of military action – this would be the beginning of the end of Ukraine,” the deputy head of Russia’s presidential administration said.

At a news conference, Kozak was asked if Russia would protect its citizens in eastern Ukraine.

Referring in his reply to Srebrenica, where about 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb forces during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war, he said: “It all depends on the scale of the fire. If there is, as our president says, Srebrenica, apparently we will have to step in to defend (them).”

Ukraine and Western countries say Donbass separatists have been armed, led, funded and aided by Russians. Moscow has denied interfering. While a ceasefire halted full-scale warfare in 2015, sporadic fighting never ceased.

(Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow, Thomas Escritt in Berlin; additional reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Toby Chopra and Timothy Heritage)

Blinken warns entities involved in Nord Stream 2 pipeline to immediately quit

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department is tracking efforts to complete Russia’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline and evaluating information on entities that appear to be involved, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday.

“Any entity involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline risks U.S. sanctions and should immediately abandon work on the pipeline,” Blinken said in a statement, adding the Biden administration is committed to complying with 2019 and 2020 legislation with regards to the pipeline and sanctions.

Shortly after Blinken’s statement, Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican and an opponent of the pipeline, lifted a hold he had placed on two of President Joe Biden’s nominees, including William Burns for director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Nord Stream 2, led by Russia state energy company Gazprom with its Western partners, would double the capacity of an existing link to take Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. Biden believes the project is a “bad deal” for Ukraine and Central and Eastern European allies, Blinken said.

The pipeline would bypass Ukraine, likely depriving it of lucrative transit revenues and potentially undermine its efforts against Russian aggression.

Sanctions law that went into effect this year require the State Department to sanction companies that help Nord Stream 2 lay pipeline or provide insurance or certification of its construction. Nearly 20 companies, mostly insurance firms, recently quit the project after Washington warned them in recent months that they could be sanctioned.

Cruz said he would maintain a hold on Wendy Sherman, who Biden has nominated to be the No. 2 official at the State Department until the administration imposes full sanctions on ships and companies involved in the project. Sherman easily passed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week and a hold would only likely delay a full Senate vote on her nomination.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Timothy Gardner; Editing by Chris Reese)

Iran’s final report blames air defense operator error for Ukraine plane crash

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s civil aviation body, in a final report, has blamed an error by an air defense operator for the shooting-down of a Ukrainian passenger plane in January 2020 that killed all 176 people aboard, the agency said on Wednesday.

Ukraine’s foreign minister criticized the report, calling it a cynical attempt by the Islamic Republic authorities to cover up the true reasons for the crash.

The Iranian report said: “The plane was identified as a hostile target due to a mistake by the air defense operator…near Tehran and two missiles were fired at it,” according to the agency’s website.

“The flight’s operation did not have a role in creating the error by the air defense battery,” the report added.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight on Jan. 8, 2020 shortly after it took off from Tehran Airport.

The Iranian government later declared that the shooting-down was a “disastrous mistake” by forces who were on high alert during a regional confrontation with the United States.

Iran was on edge about possible attacks after it fired missiles at Iraqi bases housing U.S. forces in retaliation for the killing days before of its most powerful military commander, Qassem Soleimani, in a U.S. missile strike at Baghdad airport.

As in a preliminary report issued last June, Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization said the error arose from a misalignment of a battery’s radar and a lack of communication between the air defense operator and his commanders.

“Following a tactical relocation, the relevant ADU (air defense unit) failed to adjust the system direction due to human error, causing the operator to observe the target flying west from IKA (airport) as a target approaching Tehran from the southwest at a relatively low altitude,” the final report said.

“Without receiving a go-ahead or response from the command center, he (operator) came to identify the target as a hostile one and fired missile(s) at the aircraft against the procedure planned,” it said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba lambasted the report in a post on Facebook. “What we saw in the published report today is nothing more than a cynical attempt to hide the true reasons for the downing of our plane,” he said.

“We will not allow Iran to hide the truth, we will not allow it to avoid responsibility for this crime.”

The Tehran government has allocated $150,000 for damages to be paid to families of the crash victims said several people have been put on trial over the disaster.

Ukraine has said the compensation should be set through talks, taking into account international practice, once the causes of the tragedy are established and those responsible are brought to justice.

(Reporting by Dubai newsroom and Natalia Zinets in Kyiv; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Iran’s probe into downing of airliner has major flaws – Canada report

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Iran is not conducting its probe into the downing of a civilian airliner in January properly and many questions remain unanswered, an independent Canadian report into the tragedy said on Tuesday.

The 79-page document is the latest expression of frustration from Western nations into how Tehran is handling the aftermath of a disaster that claimed 176 lives.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards say they accidentally shot down the Ukraine International Airlines plane shortly after take off, mistaking it for a missile when tensions with the United States were high. Many of the victims were Canadian citizens or permanent residents.

Former Canadian cabinet minister Ralph Goodale, charged with helping the victims’ families and examining how to deal with similar disasters in future, said “many of the key details of this horrific event” remain unknown.

“Iran bears responsibility for that because … it has not conducted its investigations (safety, criminal or otherwise) in a truly independent, objective and transparent manner, and answers to critical questions” are absent, he wrote in the report.

Last month, a governing panel at the United Nations’ aviation agency urged Iran to accelerate the investigation. Later in November, Ukraine said Iran was dragging its feet.

In the hours before the disaster, Iran had fired missiles at U.S. bases in Iraq. Five days earlier, Washington had killed a Revolutionary Guards commander with a drone strike in Iraq.

Goodale said Iran needed to explain how it had assessed the risks to civilian aircraft in its airspace and what it had told operators. He also said Tehran had to reveal why it had left the airspace open and also why exactly the Guards had decided to down the plane.

Canada, working with other nations who lost citizens, is pressing Iran for reparations while “seeking a full and candid accounting of what exactly happened” and a formal apology, Goodale said.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Alistair Bell)

U.S. embassy worker in Ukraine dies after suspected park assault

By Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets

KYIV (Reuters) – An American woman working at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv died after a suspected assault in a park near the mission, authorities said, and a search was underway for the possible perpetrator.

Ukrainian police said a passerby found the woman unconscious with a head injury, wearing running gear and headphones in the area of western Kyiv. She was taken to hospital, where she died.

Police added they were seeking a dark-haired man aged between 30-40, who wore dark shorts and a T-shirt, and may have been involved in beating the American woman.

In a statement, the U.S. embassy, which employs about 181 Americans and more than 560 locals, said it was working with Ukrainian authorities to determine what happened.

The woman’s identity and job were not given.

Interior Ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko posted pictures of the scene on Facebook, showing the woman had been found by railway tracks next to a wooded area.

“The National Police of Ukraine is investigating her death as a deliberate murder … but an accidental death is not ruled out. The body was in sports clothes and wearing headphones,” he said in a statement.

The Ukrainian ambassador to Washington, Volodymyr Yelchenko, urged quick resolution and prosecution.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Gareth Jones, Timothy Heritage, Alexandra Hudson and Andrew Cawthorne)